Should Article 348 be amended to allow regional languages in High Courts without Union consent? Critically analyse this in light of federalism and judicial uniformity.

Article 348(1)(a) makes English the language of proceedings in the Supreme Court and every High Court. Under Article 348(2), a Governor may authorise Hindi or the State language in a High Court only with the President's prior consent [1]. Only four High Courts have this permission: Rajasthan, UP, MP and Bihar [1]. Removing Union consent would strengthen federalism but put judicial uniformity at risk. Reform within the present framework is the better route.

Case for amendment: the federal view

• Each High Court serves one State. Litigants who cannot follow their own hearing lose real access to justice, which goes against the spirit of Art. 39A.
• The States have no control. Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Karnataka asked for their languages. The Full Court declined in 2012 and again in 2016 [2].
• The pattern looks uneven. Hindi was allowed in four States, while every non-Hindi request was refused [1][2].
• It has worked before. Hindi-using High Courts have functioned for decades [1].

Case against: judicial uniformity

• The judiciary is all-India. Judges and Chief Justices are transferred across States (Art. 222). They may not understand the local language. The Law Commission's 216th Report (2008) used this same reasoning to reject compulsory Hindi in the Supreme Court [3].
• Appeals to the Supreme Court, which works in English and whose rulings bind every court (Art. 141), would need translated records. That means more delay and cost.
• High Courts cite each other's rulings, and lawyers practise across States. Both would weaken.
• The amendment misses the real block. A 1965 Cabinet Committee decision requires the CJI's consent [1], and the Full Court is where requests have actually failed [2]. Dropping the President's consent alone would change little.

Way forward

• Keep the consultation step but make it time-bound and reasoned. Revisit the 1965 requirement.
• Adopt a bilingual model: proceedings in the State language, with a mandatory English translation of judgments under Sec. 7, Official Languages Act [4].
• Scale up AI translation (SUVAS, e-SCR). Supreme Court judgments have already been translated into Hindi and 16 other languages [4].

The federal case is real, but it is better met by changing how consent works than by removing it. A multilingual approach with English as the common link would serve both linguistic diversity and Article 39A's promise of equal justice, without breaking up the higher judiciary.